Saturday, July 5, 2008

I'm viewing life from the Mount Rushmore area of South Dakota this week, dodging overweight patriots by the thousands. There are more stars and stripes around here than at a Republican convention, and nary a morsel of tofu for miles. It's alternately fascinating, fun, and frightening. I've been going through scotch and cigars like they were salsa and chips.

18 comments:

the fire works are supposed to be amazing...did you have a close incounter of the 3rd kind on the way? or 2nd or 1st.?? i always describe that part of the world as hauntingly beautiful as you too should..give up you depression to the wide open sky

I love your sense of humor, except in this one area - fat jokes. The one above (350lb lady with flattened NYer stuck to seat of her pants) made me wince. I wish you'd have another look at your attitude about fat people. We're not all gluttons, and even if we were that doesn't mean it's OK to treat us with the contempt that this sad old joke demonstrates above.

Has political correctness run so amok that it's showing up here? I'm a hard-core Christian and Dan clearly is not. I'm not horribly amused when he goes with a, um, less-than-Biblical ;-) topic, but...I just shrug it off and come back another day. Dan is who he is and we are who we are. There's no way everyone is going to totally mesh with everyone else. Thank God. What an incredibly boring world THAT would be.

I'm a born-again Christian and if you can't laugh at yourself you shouldn't be laughing. Heck my 77 year old dad, also a born-again Christian, doesn't miss a comic and reads them to my mom. The funny part is when he tries to explain them. And yes there is some good Christian bashing going on.

Fat people laugh too, so no PC crap on here, otherwise some fat guy with a laptop (i.e. me at 300 pounds) might roll over on you.

LeRoy

P.S.-- I think a good Bizarro would be throwing javelins at Christians in the spirit of the original Olympic games (mixed with a little Roman throwing of Christians to lions). I know if they had human targets the audience rating for Javelin throwing would go up.

alcohol cuts through the pain of patriotism for me too. that's the only reason i look forward to family events during the summer.

@ eva & xen--so you like his humor but because he made fun of "you," you want him to change his humor to suit your taste? i don't think it works that way... get from his comics what you will, but take it with a grain of salt if you're sensitive to certain materials.

thanks for all the comments, guys. regarding fat folks, virtually every other person in either my or my wife's family is either overweight or obese. the sad truth is that if you ate a low-fat, vegan diet, the problem would not only go away but you would no longer be responsible for untold suffering and environmental damage. i love my family and do not think they are "bad people" for being obese. but our i also believe our nation's tolerance toward such an avoidable, epidemic tragedy is not a good thing.NYer contest: I enjoy following them but have too many of my own punchlines to worry about to participate. redneck wedding: I didn't really think of that photo as offensive, sorry if it bothered anyone. I find humor in many things that others don't, it is something of a standard curse for people like me. i find that i often cross the line and offend those around me without meaning to. stand-up comics have a saying, "comedy is tragedy plus time." i think virtually everything can be funny once removed from the moment. even your own tragedies. thanks again for all the comments. you guys are the best.

Dan, Please, I mean, PUH-LEESE keep making fun of the great American living and walking icons that are everywhere in the US: the fatties. I just love it when make fun of the overweights because they deserve it! Fuck, they're sucking the life energy out of earth and China's catching up! Man, we got so much food that should be given to impoverish nations, bet ya they would kill to have bbq brisket, cornbreads, and so on.

I'm sorry, fatties, WE THE PEOPLE have the right to mock you, insult you, create jokes about you, and draw cartoons about you! Now, please keep eating, we don't need you!

Wow, I just discovered your blog! You're great, I've been laughing so much, usually comic strips or jokes of the kind never make me laugh but you are so original!I'm trying to become a comic artist/illustrator you know and I'm getting to see lots of blogs. With your permission I'm going to link yours in mine, cause I think people MUST have a look at it.See you soon, I'll be back!

I love your sense of humor, except in this one area - fat jokes. The one above [...] made me wince. I wish you'd have another look at your attitude about fat people.

Eva, I agree with you. It’s one thing to recognize the collective weight problem in our country, even to poke gentle fun at it — but to me, there seems to be more of a value judgment going on here. And for what it’s worth, I’m not overweight myself, but I winced right along with you.

the sad truth is that if you ate a low-fat, vegan diet, the problem would not only go away but you would no longer be responsible for untold suffering and environmental damage.

Dan, I applaud you for living the life you believe in and for sharing your message — however, I think there’s a danger in conflating these two issues. “Not vegan” does not automatically equal “overweight”, and “overweight” does not automatically equal “cruel to animals and the environment”. There is often a relationship between the two issues, but it’s not as facile as it is usually made out to be.

jason-your point is well-taken and I didn't mean to relate the two inextricably. I know many obese vegans and many thin meat-eaters. My point was directed more at people who feel their bodies are so genetically disadvantaged that they would be overweight no matter what they eat. It isn't true. The key is "low-fat" vegan. French fries are vegan, but you'd be as big as a house if that's all you ate.I appreciate everyone's comments, although "pepe165" is well over the top. Dude, take a valium. :)

Hi, Dan. Jason's wife here. Big fan of your humor and your strip. We saw your show here in Dallas (when you still lived here with the "heathens" haha!)which was a blast; I was even lucky enough to be on the video portion. :)

I just want to put in my 2-cents about the "fat" debate please. I am quite overweight right now due to having a chronic illness. This illness keeps me housebound and mostly bedbound. It's often very difficult to exercise and when I was able to do it (I'm going through a bad attack of the dis-ease right now) it was very, let's say, non-negating the caloric! Prior to this I was at my healthiest ever, looked and felt great; then I got mono, followed by shingles, followed by this chronic illness. It's miserable to have it all taken away by something you cannot truly control.

I know some obese and overweight people eat well, not as well as they could. That's not me (for the most part). I've nearly cut red meat completely out of my diet simply b/c the energy to digest it is energy my body needs to fight the illness.

However, prior to my illness, Jason and I have been very anti-animal cruelty. We do our very, very best to know that our dairy products and say, chicken are all cruelty free. We eat cage-free eggs; free pasteurized organic milk and try to buy organic or local as much as humanly possible.

However, we're very pro-choice in all ways. I'm happy that being a vegan makes you happy. I had a close friend who passed away recently and she adored her vegan lifestyle. 25-35% of our meals are actually vegetarian. Maybe one day it will be 100%....

I guess I just ask that you also realize (and maybe some of your readers can now, too) that some of us are overweight and do not want to be. We *are* due to chronic illness and a very real inability to move. So, yes, sometimes the fat jokes can make me/us cringe. I just ask that you expand your mind to include us "ill fatties". ;)